


Stranger in Your Own Home

by kalliel



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Episode: s02e17 Heart, F/M, Minor Character(s), POV Minor Character, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Remorse, Season/Series 02, Trauma Recovery, boyking sads
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-28
Updated: 2010-08-28
Packaged: 2018-04-08 09:11:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4299033
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kalliel/pseuds/kalliel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Madison tries to reconcile the Sam she knew and the Sam who put a gun to her temple, dragged her across her own living room, tied her to a chair, and threatened to kill her there. </p><p>Tag to 2x17 "Heart."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stranger in Your Own Home

Madison is the victim of random violence. 

He _knew_ that.

And he still put a gun to her temple, dragged her across her own living room, tied her to a chair, and threatened to kill her there. In her own living room. Her own living room: her carpet, her chair, even her rope.

She can feel his arms boxing her shoulders in with the crushing ease and precision of experience. The feeling is as real and as vivid as the livid bruises snaking around her wrists. It doesn't matter who he is, what kind of quiet, awful sorrow clings to his eyes when he looks at her now and tells her he's sorry. When she thinks of Sam (No Last Name Sam) she will always think of that moment first. That horror.

"I'm sorry, too," she says, because she is, and Sam tells her, No. You didn't know. You couldn't have known. It's not your fault.

He looks so sad.

Still. _You_ knew! part of her wants to scream. You knew what I'd been through, what happened to me. And you _still_ \--you grabbed me. You put a gun to my head. You tied me to a chair. You didn't care. And she hates herself, because she knows it's not Sam she should be afraid of. 

She sees the splintered ruin of her apartment walls, and she _knows_ it's not even she who should be afraid. (She could have killed him. The scratches on his face look nothing like her walls, but she knows he could be dead. And then where would she be?) But she can't help it. 

Deep down, she knows that no matter how many cups of water he drinks from her faucet, how many soaps they watch together, how many nights she spends folding underwear in his presence--she smiling; Sam with eyes averted, blushing like a junior prom date--she will never be able to erase that thought. That fear. 

He can give her that shy, mildly entranced grin (tongue curled between his teeth, dimples to complete the look) all he wants. He can save her all he wants. It won't change anything. She knows it won't. She's been through this before.

But... It's different this time. A little. Maybe. This is how Madison's nightmare goes: Madison falls in love with a controlling psychopath, and she loves him because she doesn't know what else to do. Madison gets mugged, and she takes control of her life. Sam tells Madison she's a werewolf and he needs to kill her, and instead, Sam saves her.

Sam saves her. (And maybe that counts for something after all.)

She thinks it probably should. 

She wouldn't mind if it did.

Sam's brother leaves, and Sam stays, and it takes her two seconds to work up the nerve to invite him to sit on the couch with her. She says it with a smile, and she sounds strong and confident and balanced, but she is terrified. (She thinks of his arms boxing her in before she forces herself to concentrate on the way he keeps his hands in his lap, hands dovetailed into one another.) He gives her that looks again, the shy smile with the nib of tongue sticking out.

"So I guess what this all means is... The one thing that made me feel like I was powerful, like I had any control over what happens to me-- _that_ thing turned me into a monster," Madison says after a few seconds of staring at Sam, whose gaze remains averted.

Sam chuckles. Everything about him is quiet. "Isn't that always the way?"

She gets the impression Sam isn't talking about her. She takes a deep breath, and squeezes his thigh. Comfort. (She refuses to think about his hands as he pulls rope tight against her wrists. That was Sam and a werewolf. This is Sam and Madison. If she is a person and not her curse, then neither is Sam. She knows this. She can do this. She _wants_ to do this.)

"So...you've seen my entire underwear collection. My books, my different brands of instant coffee. That's basically my entire life on a platter. What about you?"

Sam finally looks at her. At first, it doesn't look like he's going to answer. Then: "I hunt monsters."

"And I was bitten by a werewolf." _I am not a victim._ "I asked about _you_ , Sam," she says.

"I have a brother."

" _You,_ " she repeats.

This is how the day passes. Controlling father; also a hunter. Dead mother. Life in the backseat of an old car, for years and miles and too many missed opportunities to count. Stanford University-- _So you've been to the City before? she asks. Only once, he says. Pier 39 with some friends from Hawaii. Doesn't count, she says, and he laughs._

And something that lingers at the back of all of that. Something that scares and infuriates him, something he cannot control. His words betray nothing but she knows the signs. Of course she does.

"Those are other people, other things," she finally says, when she and Sam take lunch in her kitchen. She hands him a knife to slice an avocado, and only _almost_ thinks about him sticking it in her instead. _That is not this Sam; that is not this Sam._ "What you are, from the outside looking in."

Sam knows--of course he does. "Maybe that's all I am."

Deflection. Madison allows it.

"How, uh. What do I do with this?" That smile again; Madison's in love with that little nib of tongue. It's playful and innocent and all the things Sam claims he is not.

"The avocado?"

Sam looks at the knife and he looks at the shriveled, dark green alligator skin. Turns it in his hands--shrugs.

Slice down the center, top to bottom, says Madison. She stands behind him, peeking around his shoulder as she guides him. Hands at his elbows like he's a giant marionette.

Twist. The avocado comes in two.

Now cut out the pit; just loosen it a bit with the point of the knife. (Sam's good at this.)

_All those bodies, Sam snarls. They had their hearts ripped out of their chests, and I'm supposed to believe you don't remember a fucking minute of that?_

Madison tightens her grip on his elbows and forces the memory down. Sam turns back toward her.

"Am I doing it wrong?"

"No," she says. "You didn't do anything wrong. Sorry." 

Sam slices the skinned avocado halves. Madison releases his elbows and picks up the pit. A moment of contemplation. "Can't be seen from the outside looking in, can it?"

Sam laughs. So not _everything_ about him his quiet, after all.

Madison blushes. "Sorry, was that too florid?"

No, nothing like that, he assures her. My old girlfriend used to say things like that; I--

"See, _your_ old girlfriend. Now we're getting somewhere. Though... how come the girl's the one thing that's yours, and not someone else's definition of you?" The last is a joke, but Sam doesn't laugh this time.

"She's dead."

"I'm sorry." Again. She doesn't know why she keeps telling him this; it probably helps him as much as his apologies help her. It shows how much knowledge actually helps a person, she supposes. "But at least you didn't kill her."

The warmth of Sam's entire disposition drops visible degrees.

Madison puts the avocado slices atop their salads, and takes the knife from Sam's frozen hands.

"You're a good person, Sam," she says, finally.

"I almost shot you."

"I know. But you also saved me; that has to count for something." She tries--and fails--not to think about the arms around her chest and the ropes around her arms. 

She can never forget that.

She _can't_.

But Sam, she thinks, is worth the lie. Sam is worth forgiving, even if she cannot forget. She'd say it aloud, but she's afraid of saying something cheesy and puerile again.

Sam isn't so sure, twists in his insecurities. He eats around the walnuts in his salad.

They don't speak until their plates are cleared (but for the walnuts).

Sam washes his dishes. Madison would have left them, but she follows his lead. She laughs in spite of herself, because she doesn't know if she should be falling in love with Sam for even thinking to bother, or hating herself for letting a stranger make the rules for her. She promised herself she would _never--_

It's not like that, though; not with Sam. If there are rules, Sam is the exception.

Sam will always be the exception. 

Madison is the kind of girl who grew up waiting for the one day she'd ride the M-line without it breaking down on her, waiting for an acceptance letter from Lowell that never came. She doesn't believe good things come to girls who wait, and she doesn't believe in knights in shining armor. But if there's truth to tales of wolf-women who slaughter their lovers (and their strangers) by night, there's enough truth to everything she knows of Sam to prove him, too. 

Sam--No Last Name Sam--is just real enough to be true.

Madison thinks of ropes and violence first. But she also thinks of avocados sliced uneven, and shy dovetailed fingers, and someone else, looking out toward the impossible future, trying to find their own voice. She thinks of these things more.

Madison takes a deep breath. She can do this. "You're going to stay the night, right Sam?"

She can do this.

So can he.


End file.
